It’s very tiny (3mm long), has no sting and I was shown two nests: one in a house wall and another in an electric fuse box. I had walked past both without noticing them at all.

They can produce up to 700 gm of honey each year, but this small amount can fetch very good prices: about twenty times the price of other honeys because it is favoured in Ayurvedic medicine. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to taste any, but it is said to be not overly pleasant.

The dammer bee has no sting, but it can fend off unwanted intruders with its bite, sometimes mixed with propolis for added irritation.

As well as producing valuable honey, the dammer bee is of course a very good pollinator. Both of the nests I was shown were on coffee plantations in southern India, one in Coorg, Karnataka, and the other at Ecoscape in Tamil Nadu.